1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an output processing device and an output processing method for executing printout of stored data.
2. Description of Related Art
There is widely used an output processing device such as a printer or copier for receiving output object data from a user terminal connected through a network and for printing out the data. These output processing devices include a device capable of transmitting and receiving e-mails and a device capable of having memory for data storage to store output object data.
When print documents such as conference documents obtained by such an output processing device are shared among a plurality of persons, the sharing is conventionally realized by the following method.
(1) A document maker prints out the documents as many as the number of conference participants and distributes the documents, (2) a document maker transmits the data to the conference participants by e-mail, (3) a document maker stores (uploads) the data in a shared server and informs the conference participants of access information to the storage destination, and (4) a document maker stores electronic data in a memory of the output processing device as a print job and informs the conference participants of the print job name.
However, in the above-described (1) method, the document maker must perform the printing for all the conference participants to distribute the printed papers and therefore, has a heavy workload. Further, when the number of the conference participants is not specified, excess and shortage are caused in the number of copies.
In the (2) and (3) methods, each of the conference participants executes a printing operation of electronic data attached to the received mail or of electronic data downloaded from the shared server. However, when a user terminal on the conference participant side has no application for opening the electronic data, no electronic data may be printed. Further, when an electronic data capacity is large, congestion of the communication line is incurred.
Further, in the (4) method, the data is directly secured in the output processing device for printing out the data. Therefore, the (4) method is excellent in terms of no data movement. However, an operation for the print instruction on the stored data must be executed from an operating section of the output processing device and therefore, the method is complicated. Moreover, when a large amount of other data is stored within the memory, it is difficult to execute data retrieval.
To cope with this problem, there is disclosed a system having a Web server function for providing stored data to an output processing device, in which the user terminal side can start the Web browser to confirm contents of each data stored in the output processing device and to execute the print instruction on desired stored data (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication Unexamined Nos. 2004-326817 and 2004-110116). According to the system, retrieval of the stored data is easy as well as the print instruction can be executed by remote control.
Further, there is also disclosed a system for transmitting a program for setting a password in stored data in a confidential printing to each user terminal by attaching it to e-mail, in which the user terminal side can start the program to execute a password setting processing on the stored data in an output processing device (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication Unexamined No. 2001-216101). In addition, there is also disclosed an output processing device which informs each user terminal of a deletion date on stored data by using e-mail (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication Unexamined No. 2004-199456).
However, in technologies described in Japanese Patent Application Publication Unexamined Nos. 2004-326817 and 2004-110116, the Web browser must be started. Further, a long time is required to execute exchange for display of stored data or for retrieval of output object stored data. Accordingly, these technologies are complicated. Further, for the browse using the Web browser, the stored data is converted into HTML data and as a result, a layout thereof may be different from that of the original data or degradation of the image quality may be incurred.
Further, according to a technology described in Japanese Patent Application Publication Unexamined No. 2001-216101, stored data is specified by e-mail and therefore, no retrieving operation of the stored data is required in the output processing device. However, a long time is also required to start a program for password setting or to execute the password setting. Further, setting of the password can be executed by remote control. However, print instructions must be executed from an operating section of the output processing device and therefore, this technology is similarly complicated.